For Mac Users - How to Install Windows on Mac without Boot Camp

Generally, one computer only runs one operating system. In some cases, users might need two operating systems on one computer, and it is more common when users are using Mac computers. 

On Mac computers, the built-in Boot Camp has long been an official way to allow users to partition the hard drive and then install Windows. Even so, many people are still looking for alternative ways to install Windows 10 on Mac without Boot Camp. Because the Boot Camp doesn't work seamlessly in many cases, it is tedious, error-prone, and it slows down installation productivity.

Thankfully, there are numerous third-party tools that help users install Windows systems without Boot Camp. Here in this article, we will introduce how can Mac users apply a tool called Qiling Disk Master to install Windows. Moreover, virtual machines such as VMware and VirtualBox are also perfect choices to run Windows on macOS. 

Preparations

Before starting to install Windows 10 on your Mac, you should prepare the following things:

• A USB stick with at least 64 GB or larger.
• A copy of a Windows 10 ISO image file or a Windows computer.
• A valid Windows 10 license that can legally and properly activate Windows.
• Download the Boot Camp Drivers.

If you prefer not to use Boot Camp, then the easiest method is to create a portable Windows USB so that you can use it on the Mac computer. There are plenty of third-party tools that can help users to create a portable Windows USB, one of such tools is Qiling OS2Go. All you need is to prepare a larger enough USB drive, then leave the rest to Qiling OS2Go.

Procedure 1. Create Windows Portable USB

First, you need to download and install Qiling OS2Go on your computer. Then follow the detailed guide below to create a Windows portable USB.

• Free Download
• Windows 11/10/8/7, 100% Secure

Step 1. Install Qiling OS2Go on your Windows computer, it will display your system drive's used space. Plug in a USB drive that is larger than the system drive used space. Choose the target USB drive and click Next to continue.

Step 2. Qiling OS2Go will notify you that the following operation would delete all data on your drive. Make sure that you have backed up all the important data. Click the Continue button to proceed.

Step 3. Adjust disk layout. The default disk layout on the target drive will be exactly the same as the resource drive. You could also edit the layout according to your needs. Tick the option there if you're using a Solid State Drive as the Windows bootable drive. Next, click Proceed.

Step 4. Then Qiling OS2Go will start to create the portable USB drive. It usually takes a while depending on your OS and Network condition. When the progress reaches 100%, the USB drive should be bootable now.

Step 5. Insert the portable Windows USB and start your Mac. Press the Option/Alt key. Choose the yellow EFI Boot icon to boot from the USB drive. Then follow the onscreen instruction to boot your Mac.

Procedure 2. Partition Mac Drives

If you still want to install Windows on your Mac, you can first create a bootable Windows USB with ISO files, then you need to partition the Mac drive and boot the Mac from the USB. Here are the detailed steps of these two procedures. As the Windows OS should be installed on a separated partition, it is an essential step to partition your drive. On Mac computers, you can apply the Disk Utility.

Step 1. Open Disk Utility, select your local drive (SSD or HDD) on the left and click Partition.

Step 2. Click on the small "+", then select the size of the partition, it should be at least 30 GB. You can name it anything as you want, and make sure the format is set to MS-DOS (FAT), then click Apply. Now you can see there are two separated partitions.

Procedure 3. Boot Your Mac from Bootable USB Drive

Now it's the last step, boot your Mac from the created bootable USB drive. 

Step 1. Insert the USB drive into your Mac.

Step 2. Restart the Mac and holding the Option key to enter the installing page.

Step 3. Choose EFI Boot, and the Mac should be boot from USB properly. Follow the Windows setup wizard to install the Windows OS on the created partition. The installing process will take some time, please wait patiently. During the process, the Mac will automatically restart several times.

Step 4. If you have created a portable USB with an activated Windows computer, just wait until the booting process finishes. If you have created the portable USB with Windows ISO files, then you need to activate the Windows system. Enter your Windows product key. If you lost the key, you can click the do it later button.

Step 5. You may find the keyboard or the mouse is not working under the Windows system, that's because the bootable USB drive only contains basic drivers. You need to download and install Windows support drivers.

Step 6. Download and launch Boot Camp on your Mac, navigate to the USB drive in File Explorer, then go to WindowsSupport > BootCamp. Double-click the setup.exe.

Step 7. Follow the setup wizard, wait until it tells you to reboot the Mac to finish the installation. Now your Mac computer has dual systems.

If you want to switch from Windows system to macOS or vice versa, restart your Mac and holding the Option key to enter the booting page, choose the corresponding drive, you can switch from Windows and macOS.

Conclusion

It does seem a little bit complicated to install the Windows OS on a Mac computer. However, with Qiling OS2GO, you have finished the most difficult part - creating a bootable USB. Then you could follow our step-by-step guide to finish the next procedures. 

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